The Exiles

Most people have probably never heard of Kent MacKenzie's historically and culturally essential film The Exiles (1961). Some clips of it surfaced in Thom Andersen's exceptional 2004 cine-essay Los Angeles Plays Itself—about the The City of Angels as depicted in movies—but unfortunately, most people have never heard of that film either. Andersen included it prominently because it managed to find vivid corners of the city that didn't actually look like set dressing. Now, thanks to Milestone Films (who also gave us the 2007 re-release and 2008 DVD of Charles Burnett's extraordinary Killer of Sheep), The Exiles has been released uncut on an outstanding two-disc set—presented by Burnett himself.

Continue reading "The Exiles"

Ballast

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson
Rating (out of 5): **½

With Ballast, writer/director Lance Hammer tells a story about a broken African-American family in Mississippi's Delta: a man commits suicide and his surviving twin brother Lawrence (Micheal J. Smith Sr.) finds himself alone, in charge of their little convenience store and dealing with his angry sister-in-law Marlee (Tarra Riggs), who understandably has mixed emotions about seeing him. Lawrence's nephew James (JimMyron Ross) is possibly even more alone, having become involved with local drug dealers while his mother is away working all the time. Hammer lets us in on these details a little at a time, rather than spelling it all out. The setting is relentlessly gray, with leafless, spindly trees, ground so cold and muddy you can practically feel it with your toes, and a slightly foggy emptiness. This film has received glowing reviews from nearly every quarter; and with its non-white characters and barren landscapes, it does feel like an escape from fluffy Hollywood.

Proteus

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

What a little gem is Proteus, which brings together a profusion of seeming opposites -- science and art, history and fantasy, Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner and the 1872 voyage of HMS Challenger-- that in reality work in tandem toward the betterment of our globe.

Writer/director David Lebrun's model documentary from 2004 (but only released to DVD in the past year) leaps off from the story of one of the world's more unsung heroes: the 19th Century German
scientist/artist Ernst Haeckel, who discovered, described, named and sometimes even painted thousands of new
species, particularly those called radiolarian, which this film captures in image and art in a staggeringly beautiful way. Here, as with the discovery of DNA decades later, the beauty of biology and nature's forms leads to scientific discovery and evolutionary theory.

Unmistaken Child

Reviewer: Walt Opie
Rating (out of 5): ****

You don't necessarily have to believe in reincarnation to practice Buddhism, nor to appreciate Unmistaken Child (2008), an engaging documentary on this subject by Israeli director Nati Baratz. Now out on DVD after a very brief outing in theaters, this film was shot beautifully by a small crew (often just Baratz himself) who serve as our proverbial "fly on the wall," allowing us incredible access into the inner workings of the Tibetan Buddhist system of picking reincarnated lamas. Call it Kundun meets Hoop Dreams and you might start to get the idea.

Describing the story of this film almost takes away from it, as the real pleasures are to be enjoyed in the simple moments along the way. But the gist of it is this: Unmistaken Child tells the true account of the search by an extremely devoted and quietly charming young Tibetan monk, Tenzin Zopa, for the reincarnation of his recently deceased 84-year-old master, Geshe Lama Konchog. The master was deeply revered for having spent 26 years practicing alone in a mountain cave (Tibetans apparently referred to him as "the modern-day Milarepa" which is high praise indeed). In the film, we go from the back corridors of the Tibetan government-in-exile's Dharamsala, India offices to the actual cave, or what's left of it, where Lama Konchog once lived. We tag along as Tenzin Zopa sets off on his rather overwhelming mission to find a young child who can be "unmistakenly" identified as the reincarnation of his beloved teacher. We watch him interview young children and their families in hope of discovering the correct signs that point back to his master. And we see what happens once a young boy has finally been selected, even watching as the boy gets his head shaved for the first time, which doesn't seem to go as smoothly as Tenzin Zopa expected.

Lake Tahoe

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ****

On the basis of his first two full-length features -- Duck Season and now Lake Tahoe -- I'm ready to declare Mexican filmmaker Fernando Eimbcke (pronounced I'm-Kay, with the accent on the first syllable) a real original. Eimbcke's got his own tone and “take” on things, and his movies remind me of little else in the canon. Sure, you could bring up Jarmusch (as some have), but Eimbcke's work is sweeter, looser, with a distinctive sense of hopeful surprise in the world and its people -- Mexican variety. As co-writer (with Paola Markovitch) and director, Eimbcke offers kindness, hope and an open, guileless quality that proves enormously welcoming -- plus a hefty enough dose of content in an unusually quiet and subtle style. Dogs may bark in his new film, but nobody seems to shout.

The Last Days of Disco

Reviewer: Amy Monaghan
Rating (out of 5): ****½

It is, a title archly informs us, “the very early '80s” - “September,” to be exact - but the strobelight flicker of the opening credits and the thumping beat make it clear that we are in The Last Days of Disco (1998). In the final film of director Whit Stillman's informal trilogy (after Metropolitan and Barcelona), recent Hampshire grads Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) and Alice (Chloe Sevigny, escaping from Harmony Korine films) spend their days trying to discover the best seller that will elevate them from editorial assistants to associate editors at a midtown Manhattan publishing house.

History, however, is made at night. That's when they go to the club (never named) - if, that is, they can make past imperious doorman Von (director Burr Steers, years before Igby Goes Down). This disco is not meant to be Studio 54 exactly - Bianca Jagger never shows up on horseback, although two-time Spy magazine Ironman Nightlife Triathalon winner and social gadfly Anthony Haden Guest lurks in some shots, while Drew Barrymore's mother Jaid, as nightlife fixture the "Tiger Lady," slinks across others. But the film provides a backdrop for after-dark commingling of the sort that saw Fab Five Freddy heading downtown to collaborate with Blondie.

Orphan

Reviewer: Jonathan Poritsky
Rating (out of 5): **

I don't really know what to make of a film whose strongest moment is its closing credits (although lifted conceptually from Kyle Cooper's Se7en opening, they really do pack a wallop). Orphan, directed by helmer Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax), spends seventy minutes poking around for a purpose, only to pick up the pace just before the third act shows up out of nowhere. It's a real shame because the film's ultimate revelation is conceptually strong.

The Answer Man

Reviewer: James van Maanen
Rating (out of 5): ***

For anyone who suffers from the occasional bad back, a new to DVD film The Answer Man -- the first from writer/director John Hindman -- should be a must-see, if only to revel in the facial expressions of its star (a sublimely funny, nasty and so-real-it-hurts Jeff Daniels), as he suffers the moment-by-moment degradations of a spine askew. But there's a lot more going on in this light, bright--if also sometimes quite sad --romantic comedy, too.

Samuel Fuller Collection

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson
Rating (out of 5): *****

In his autobiography, filmmaker Samuel Fuller wrote that he did not speak a word for the first several years of his life, and then suddenly, at age 4 or 5, he blurted out the word "hammer!" The abruptness of this word, and its punchy imagery, practically defines Fuller's work.

He was a hard crime reporter as a teenager, and then a dogface soldier in World War II. He wrote books and stories and screenplays -- he called them all "yarns" -- filled with hammer-like dialogue and phrases and ideas. Due to the lurid subject matter and low budgets of his films, he rarely earned the respect and admiration he deserved (he never received a single Oscar nomination). Many of his films are still AWOL on DVD, but Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has taken a major step toward righting that wrong with The Samuel Fuller Collection, their extraordinary new seven-disc DVD box set.

Medicine for Melancholy

Reviewer: Craig Phillips
Rating (out of 5): ***½

[Note: This review originally appeared on GreenCine Daily when film premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The widescreen DVD is out from MPI Home Video.]

I was wary of Barry Jenkins's film even before I even saw it. That's not his fault: I've simply gotten to the point, sadly, where I dread low-budget/indie films shot in my hometown, San Francisco, having sat through too many recently that made me want to claw my eyes out - and then having to nod and smile at the makers afterwards when the lights come on. And in the press notes for this film, "The City of San Francisco" is listed as one of three main characters, which made me worry even further. What's more, the very title is a bit tacked on - Jenkins confessed in an interview that he saw a character in Chloe in the Afternoon reading Ray Bradbury's book and thought it made a fitting title. Nothing inherently wrong with that; I was only disappointed there wasn't more to the reference in the film.

Despite my fears, Medicine for Melancholy, flawed though it may be, is a low-key revelation. Continue reading "Medicine for Melancholy"

Fados

Reviewer: Jeffrey M. Anderson
Rating (out of 5): ****½

Fados shouldn't have worked; veteran Spanish director Carlos Saura (Cría cuervos, Tango) assembles a collection of fado singers and films them singing in front of colored backdrops. Sometimes the backdrops become more elaborate (such as a nightclub) and sometimes dancers accompany the music. These famous Portuguese ballads (currently undergoing a revival) have a long history, and are specifically related to poor and urban artists who expressed their yearnings in the most bittersweet ways. There is a certain structure to the songs and certain rules that must, more or less, be followed. Any lesser filmmaker would have traced the history of the music, dissecting it and trying to burrow inside all the songs.